Centralism and alienation

I see the fundamental nature of the question before us - for the African continent at least - as being how to effect an internal harmonisation of seeming irreconcilable elements within national entities, how to reconcile peoples of distinct histories with the consequences of colonial arbitrariness and the timidity, the lack of will, the failure of the first-generation leaders to boldly tackle the fault-lines of a continent that often run along the boundaries that have been inherited.